"Behaviours4Collaboration" is a group looking at the behavioural changes needed to support collaborative working in general, and BIM (building information modelling) in particular. This presentation was delivered (Pecha Kucha style) at GreenBIM in Leeds on 3 December 2014

1. Behaviours 4 collaboration
Paul Wilkinson
(EEPaul)

2. “Never doubt that a small group of
thoughtful, committed citizens can
change the world. Indeed, it is the
only thing that ever has.”
(Attributed to anthropologist Margaret Mead)

3. Behaviours 4 Collaboration
• Started by SW Regional BIM Hub
• Now a “BIM4” group
• A BIM Task Group “community”
• led by Elizabeth Kavanagh
(of Stride Treglown)

4. support
• BuildingSMART
• Constructing Excellence
• Mark Bew
• Mervyn Richards

5. •Linkedin Group
•B4C stakeholders event - Bath, 28 January 2014

6. Behaviours 4
Collaboration
• Aim:
to enable collaboration by specifying the
behaviours of collaboration

7. Outcomes: A Profession CPD Map

8. Behaviours 4 Collaboration - goals
1) Specify and publicise what collaboration is and how to develop it
2) Engage industry in defining and developing collaborative relationships
3) Provide guidance to appropriate industry bodies and institutions
4) Promote case studies which demonstrate best practice
5) Provide leadership in the development of collaborative capabilities
6) Work with industry to develop current professionals’ capabilities
7) Work with higher education to develop capabilities of future generation of industry
professionals
8) Share knowledge and learning between its members

9. Some desirable behaviours
Co-ordination
avoid gaps and overlap in team members work
Co-operation
obtain mutual benefit by sharing work
Collaboration
achieved results which could not be accomplished alone

10. More definitions
Knowledge - information about a
subject
Skills - using what I know in a situation
Behaviours - the way I use my skills -
what you see me do

11. Competence =
knowledge + skill + behaviour
For example, sales competence is made possible by knowledge of
the industry, the customer and the company, together with the
skills of listening and communicating, and the behaviours of
professionalism and initiative.

12. Three observations
1. Behaviour is key to collaboration
2. Others specify the behaviours
required
3. Client is part of the team

13. The factor pairings
• Trust / Respect
• Silos / T-shaped People
• Openness / Communication
• Common goals / New ways of
working
• Leadership / Interpersonal
skills

14. Building trust and
mutual respect
Trust: the most commonly mentioned factor:
“trust cannot be brought about by means of
clauses within a contract, but is created by
‘meeting promises and delivering performance’ ”
(British Standards Institution, 2011).
Mutual respect
involves an understanding of the roles of the various
professionals involved.

15. Transcending silos
“The aim should be to bring people out of their
professional silos to achieve better integration with
others through BIM enabled processes and tools.”

16. Connecting as ‘T-shaped’
professionals
“When operating at Level 3 BIM it is necessary
to operate as a professional in any discipline
as a T-shaped person" (IfM and IBM, 2008)
Individuals require multiple skills in order to collaborate
effectively. For example, they may need research skills,
creative thinking and cooperation, as well as expert
knowledge in their own discipline.
A series of similarly equipped T-shaped professionals
would, therefore, be able to connect across boundaries in
an inter-professional (rather than a silo-orientated multi-professional)
manner.

17. Sharing openly,
communicating
BS 11000 stresses the need to create operational benefit in a spirit of
mutual trust and openness (British Standards Institution, 2011).
There are also close ties with:
• honesty - Employees from different organisations need to share the
same levels of honesty and openness, especially when dealing with
other partner companies.
• cross-organisational knowledge - few organisations are entirely
independent of those that surround them
Potential issues with communicating across boundaries
• unfamiliar vocabulary
• contrasting approaches to problems
• a lack of common understanding of values

18. Sharing goals,
working in new ways
Attributes needed for effective teamwork:
• commitment to team (rather than individual) success
• shared goals
Using BIM to its full potential requires the people
involved to:
• adopt new working practices (ie: processes)
• adapt to new demands (eg: having regard to the needs
of end users throughout the design phase).
Adoption of BIM is creating new workflows (sometimes
less centralised and more organic)

19. Leading and managing change
Consider the management of collaborating organisations, not just
the individuals representing them on projects.
For example, creating an environment that fosters collaborative
practices involves financial investment and provision of resources
such as time and encouragement.
Interpersonal skills help nurture relationships within the
collaborative team:
• awareness of needs of other professionals
• relational skills
• caring behaviour
• sensitivity
For example, collaborative information retrieval practices

20. Collaborative BIM leadership
Behaviour
• Redefining success. From
narrow agendas to bigger goals
• Involving others. From autocratic
to inclusive decision making
• Being accountable. From blaming
to taking responsibility
What it means
• Collaborative leaders redefine success
and focus on goals bigger than their
own narrow agendas. They seek
common ground, look for pragmatic
solutions, and compromise
• Collaborative leaders involve others in
decision making and exhibit an open
mind to alternative divergent views,
dialogue and working with others
• Collaborative leaders hold
themselves accountable and also
demand accountability from others